'AITA for answering a question in a group chat, making my supervisor look dumb?'
"AITA for answering a question in a group chat, making my supervisor look dumb?"
I 33f am second in command at a very small and rural ambulance service. It is strictly volunteer consists of about 10 members. We use a group chat to send communications frequently. We will call him Bill, our captain, sent out a messaging updating the group on a county meeting him and I attended. A member asked if the meetings were public.
Bill answered that no they are private and always have been. A second member questioned Bills answer, stating that she thought that the meeting were public. This led to Bill responding "I've been to a lot of meetings and never once has there been anyone that was not affiliated with an agency or a board member."
Later that same night while I work I actually ran into a board member and was able to clarify that the meetings are indeed public. I send out a quick text stating "I spoke to Board member while doing a transport tonight. He did confirm that the meetings are open to the public. Why there is never any public in attendance, I have no clue."
This morning, while trying to sleep after my night shift, I woke up to repeated phone calls and a text from my captain. Here is a copy and paste of the message: "Thinking about hanging it up at ambulance tired of fighting with people to run calls and I don't appreciate basically be called a liar....
In front of the whole crew so if you all think you can run things and know better than me and what I've seen with meetings you could of let me find out when I had my one on one with a board member instead of making me out as you did."
I called him back and he chewed my butt saying that answering the question in the group chat made him look like a fool and I should have messaged him privately instead so he could have told the group, not me. I responded that I don't get paid to do any of this and absolutely will not tolerate being talked to like this. He's now not talking to me. So was AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Vdavwil said:
NTA. This highlights his insecurity much more than it does his competency. Anyone can make a mistake, you just accept the correction and be glad the right info got out.
jam7789 said:
NTA. He didn't actually know the answer. He should have said.... gee I don't know if meetings are public, but I've never seen anyone from the general public there. Instead he had to be a know it all and act like anyone questioning his answer was stupid. And you showed him...hey guess who's really the stupid one?
SpecialProfile2697 said:
Sounds like moving on is his best option NTA.
Sparklingwine23 said:
NTA, does he have an issue with you as a woman as well as just being a better communicator than him? If he wanted to know the answer he could have said he'd ask and get back to the group, he didn't so he made himself the fool.
snappedlikeakitkat said:
NTA. Adults can admit when they're mistaken. You didn't insinuate he was a liar, you even said you had no idea why the general public doesn't attend, making it plausible that Bill just didn't realize because of only members being in attendance historically.
Not speaking to you is not effective workplace communication, and definitely an issue in such a job. Y'all are trying to save lives, not placate his stupid ego, and if he's forgotten that, he's of no use to the service he's supposed to support.
ccam04 said:
NTA. You know why? Because you don't get paid and absolutely should not be talked to like that. Honestly, paid or not, no supervisor should be like that. You did nothing wrong and simply provided information. Now if you had called Bill a dumbass for being wrong then that's different.